Business and IT need to come to a similar platform and speak a similar language in order to create alignment and thereby give organisations a competitive advantage.
This was according to Alan Cowley, CEO of Sybase SA, speaking in a panel discussion at last week's ITWeb, Sybase Achieving Business and IT Alignment Forum. He says business needs and IT needs can be integrated, "it really starts with all parties taking joint ownership of the issue".
Terry White, business and technology advisor at MarketWorks, said by looking at the research conducted in the arena, there is definitely a disproportionate sense of responsibility.
"At the moment, business thinks it only needs to be 20% involved in the delivery of IT and IT feels it is only responsible for a small percentage of business."
Leon Pretorius, business intelligence support at WesBank, says this schism needs to be bridged. "It is no longer enough to only consider one's customer base as partners to business. Business must approach IT from the perspective that it is a partner."
"As long as IT is tasked with the alignment process, organisations will have the same challenges that business has with politics," added Brian Peck, GM of Business Architecture at Nedbank.
According to keynote speaker Nick Binedell, director of the Gordon Institute of Business Science: "Much of business is dictated by the political arena, especially in SA, where policies such as BEE have a massive impact on the decisions government makes."
He said the trick is to have the entrepreneurial insight to look over the horizon and predict what may happen next.
Adding to this, Rudi Leibrandt, practice manager at Sybase, said most of these problems could be resolved through designing and following a simple framework. "By doing this we can make sure that information will drive IT and business and not drive them crazy."
Share